CHAPTER VIII

NEWGATE NOTORIETIES

Diminution in certain kinds of crime—Fewer street

robberies—Corresponding increase in cases of fraud, forgeries,

jewel and bullion robberies—Great commercial frauds—Offences

against the person confined to murder and manslaughter—The

Cato Street conspiracy—Thistlewood's history—Discovery of

the plot—The conspirators' plan and its overthrow—Their

trial and execution at the Old Bailey—Attacks on the

sovereign—Oxford fires at Queen Victoria—Celebrated

frauds and forgeries—Fauntleroy—The last execution for

forgery—Joseph Hunton the Quaker—Sir Robert Peel's bill

to amend forgery laws—The Forgery Act—Latest cases of

abduction—Edward Gibbon Wakefield and Miss Turner—The most

remarkable murders of the epoch—Thurtell, Hunt, and Probert

kill Mr. Weare—Burke and Hall—Their imitators, Bishop and

Williams, in London—Greenacre and Mrs. Gale murder Hannah

Brown—Horrible means of disposing of the corpse—Detection,

trial, and sentence—Courvoisier murders his master—An

epidemic of murder.

The record of crime has been brought down to the second decade of the

last century. Some space should be devoted to criminal occurrences

of a more recent date, only premising that as accounts become more

voluminous I shall be compelled to deal with fewer cases, taking in

preference those which are typical and invested with peculiar interest.

It is somewhat remarkable that a marked change soon comes over

the Calendar. Certain crimes, those against the person especially,

diminished gradually. They became less easy or remunerative. Police

protection was better and more effective; the streets of London were

well lighted, the suburbs were more populous and regularly patrolled.

People, moreover, were getting into the habit of carrying but little

cash about them, and no valuables but their watches or personal

jewelry. Street robberies offered fewer inducements to depredators,

and evil-doers were compelled to adopt other methods of preying upon

their fellows. This led to a rapid and marked increase in all kinds

of fraud; and prominent in the criminal annals of Newgate in these

later years will be found numerous remarkable instances of this class

of offence—forgeries committed systematically, and for long periods,

as in the case of Fauntleroy, to cover enormous defalcations; the

fabrication of deeds, wills, and false securities for the purpose

of misappropriating funds or feloniously obtaining cash; thefts of

bullion, bank-notes, specie, and gold-dust, planned with consummate

ingenuity, eluding the keenest vigilance, and carried out with reckless

daring; jewel-boxes cleverly stolen under the very noses of owners

or care-takers. As time passed, the extraordinary extension of all

commercial operations led to many entirely novel and often gigantic

financial frauds. The credulity of investors, the unscrupulous

dishonesty of bankers, the slackness of supervision over wholly

irresponsible agents, produced many terrible monetary catastrophes, and

lodged men like Cole, Robson, and Redpath in Newgate.

While the varying conditions of social life thus brought about many

changes in the character of offences against property, those against

the person became more and more limited to the most heinous, or those

which menaced or destroyed life. There was no increase in murder or

manslaughter; the number of such crimes remained proportionate to the

population. Nor did the methods by which they were perpetrated greatly

vary from those in times past. The causes also continued much the same.

Passion, revenge, cupidity, sudden ebullitions of homicidal rage, the

cold-blooded, calculating atrocity born of self-interest, were still

the irresistible incentives to kill. The brutal ferocity of the wild

beast once aroused, the same means, the same weapons were employed to

do the dreadful deed, the same and happily often futile precautions

taken to conceal the crime. Pegsworth, and Greenacre, and Daniel Good

merely reproduced types that had gone before, and that have since

reappeared. Esther Hibner was as inhuman in her ill-usage of the parish

apprentice whom she killed as Martha Brownrigg had been. Thurtell

and Hunt followed in the footsteps of Billings, Wood, and Catherine

Hayes. Courvoisier might have lived a century earlier. Hocker was found

upon the scene of his crime, irresistibly attracted thither, as was

Theodore Gardelle. Now and again there seemed to be a recurrence of a

murder epidemic, as there had been before; as in the year 1849, a year

memorable for the Rush murders at Norwich, the Gleeson Wilson murder

at Liverpool, that of the Mannings in London, and of many more. Men

like Mobbs, the miscreant known as "General Haynau" on account of his

blood-thirstiness, still murdered their wives; or struck in blind rage

like Cannon the chimney-sweeper, who savagely killed the policeman.

But at various dates treason distinct and tangible still came to the

front: direct attempts to levy war against the State. The well-known

Cato Street conspiracy, which grew out of disturbed social conditions

after the last French war, amidst general distress, and when the people

were beginning to agitate for a larger share of political power, was

among the earliest, and to some extent the most desperate, of these.

Its ringleaders, Thistlewood and the rest, were after capture honoured

by committal as State prisoners to the Tower, but they came one and

all to Newgate for trial at the Old Bailey, and remained there after

conviction till they were hanged. Later on, the Chartists agitated

persistently for the concessions embraced in the so-called People's

Charter, many of which are, by more legitimate efforts, engrafted upon

the Constitution. But the Chartists sought their ends by riot and

rebellion, and gained only imprisonment for their pains. Some five

hundred in all were arrested, but only three of these were lodged in

Newgate.

The Cato Street conspiracy would have been simply ridiculous but for

the recklessness of the desperadoes who planned it. That some thirty

or more needy men should hope to revolutionize England is a sufficient

proof of the absurdity of their attempt. But they proceeded in all

seriousness, and would have shrunk from no outrage or atrocity in

furtherance of their foolhardy enterprise. The massacre of the whole

of the Cabinet Ministers at one stroke was to be followed by an attack

upon "the old man and the old woman," as they styled the Mansion House

and the Bank of England. At the former the "Provisional Government"

was to be established, which under Thistlewood as dictator was to rule

the nation by first handing over its capital to fire and pillage.

This Thistlewood had seen many vicissitudes throughout his strange,

adventurous career. The son of a respectable Lincolnshire farmer, he

became a militia officer, and married a woman with £10,000, in which,

however, she had only a life interest. She died early, and Thistlewood,

left to his own resources, followed the profession of arms, first in

the British service, and then in that of the French revolutionary

Government. It was during this period that he was said to have imbibed

his revolutionary ideas. Returning to England, he found himself rich

in a small landed property, which he presently sold to a man who

became bankrupt before he had paid over the purchase money. After this

he tried farming, but failed. He married again and came to London,

where he soon became notorious as a reckless gambler and a politician

holding the most extreme views. In this way he formed the acquaintance

of Watson and others, with whom he was arraigned for treasonable

practices, and imprisoned. On his release he sent a challenge to Lord

Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, and was again arrested and imprisoned. On

his second release, goaded by his fancied wrongs, he began to plot a

dark and dreadful revenge, and thus the conspiracy in which he was the

prime mover took shape, and came to a head.

The Government obtained early and full information of the nefarious

scheme. One of the conspirators, by name Edwards, made a voluntary

confession to Sir Herbert Taylor one morning at Windsor; after which

Thistlewood and his accomplices were closely watched, and measures

taken to arrest them when their plans were so far developed that no

doubt could remain as to their guilt. The day appointed for the murder

and rising actually arrived before the authorities interfered. It

was the day on which Lord Harrowby was to entertain his colleagues

at dinner in Grosvenor Square. The occasion was considered excellent

by the conspirators for disposal of the whole Cabinet at one blow,

and it was arranged that one of their number should knock at Lord

Harrowby's door on the pretence of leaving a parcel, and that when

it was opened the whole band should rush in. While a few secured the

servants, the rest were to fall upon Lord Harrowby and his guests.

Hand-grenades were to be thrown into the dining-room, and during

the noise and confusion the assassination of the ministers was to

be completed, the heads of Lord Castlereagh and Lord Sidmouth being

carried away in a bag. Lord Harrowby's dinner-party was postponed,

but the conspirators knew nothing of it, and those who watched his

house were further encouraged in their mistake by the arrival of

many carriages, bound, as it happened, to the Archbishop of York's.

Meanwhile the main body remained at their headquarters, a ruined

stable in Cato Street, Edgeware Road, completing their dispositions

for assuming supreme power after the blow had been struck. Here they

were surprised by the police, headed by a magistrate, and supported by

a strong detachment of Her Majesty's Guards. The police were the first

to arrive on the spot, the Guards having entered the street at the

wrong end. The conspirators were in a loft, approached by a ladder and

a trap-door, access through which could only be obtained one by one.

The first constable who entered Thistlewood ran through the body with a

sword, but others quickly followed, the lights were extinguished, and

a desperate conflict ensued. The Guards, headed by Lord Frederick Fitz

Clarence, now reinforced the police, and the conspirators gave way.

Nine of the latter were captured, with all the war material, cutlasses,

pistols, hand grenades, and ammunition. Thistlewood and fourteen more

succeeded for the moment in making their escape, but most of them were

subsequently taken. Thistlewood was discovered next morning in a mean

house in White Street, Moorfields. He was in bed with his breeches on

(in the pockets of which were found a number of cartridges), the black

belt he had worn at Cato Street, and a military sash.

The trial of the conspirators came on some six weeks later, at the

Old Bailey. Thistlewood made a long and rambling defence, the chief

features of which were abuse of Lord Sidmouth, and the vilification

of the informer Edwards. Several of the other prisoners took the same

line as regards Edwards, and there seems to have been good reason for

supposing that he was a greater villain than any of those arraigned.

He had been in a state of abject misery, and when he first joined

"the reformers," as the Cato Street conspirators called themselves,

he had neither a bed to lie upon nor a coat to his back. His sudden

access to means unlimited was no doubt due to the profitable _rôle_ he

soon adopted of Government informer and spy, and it is pretty certain

that for some time he served both sides; on the one inveigling silly

enthusiasts to join in the plot, and denouncing them on the other.

The employment of Edwards, and the manner in which the conspirators

were allowed to commit themselves further and further before the law

was set in motion against them, were not altogether creditable to the

Government. It was asserted, not without foundation, at these trials,

that Edwards repeatedly incited the associates he was betraying to

commit outrage, to set fire to houses, and throw hand-grenades into

the carriages of ministers; that he was, to use Thistlewood's words,

"a contriver, instigator, and entrapper." The Government were probably

not proud of their agent, for Edwards, after the conviction had been

assured, went abroad to enjoy, it was said, an ample pension, so long

as he did not return to England.

Five of the conspirators, Thistlewood, Ings, Brunt, Davidson, and

Tidd, were sentenced to death, and suffered in the usual way in front

of Newgate, with the additional penalty of decapitation, as traitors,

after they had been hanged. A crowd as great as any known collected

in the Old Bailey to see the ceremony, about which there were some

peculiar features worth recording. The reckless demeanour of all

the convicts except Davidson was most marked. Thistlewood and Ings

sucked oranges on the scaffold; they with Brunt and Tidd scorned the

ordinary's ministrations, but Ings said he hoped God would be more

merciful to him than men had been. Ings was especially defiant. He

sought to cheer Davidson, who seemed affected, crying out, "Come, old

cock-of-wax, it will soon be over." As the executioner fastened the

noose, he nodded to a friend he saw in the crowd; and catching sight

of the coffins ranged around the gallows, he smiled at the show with

contemptuous indifference. He roared out snatches of a song about Death

or Liberty, and just before he was turned off, yelled out three cheers

to the populace whom he faced.

Attacks upon the sovereign were not uncommon after the accession of

the young Queen Victoria to the English throne in 1838. It was a form

of high treason not unknown in earlier reigns. In 1786 a mad woman,

Margaret Nicholson, tried to stab George III as he was alighting

from his carriage at the gate of St. James's Palace. She was seized

before she could do any mischief, and eventually lodged in Bethlehem

Hospital, where she died after forty years' detention, at the advanced

age of one hundred. Again, a soldier, by name Hatfield, who had been

wounded in the head, and discharged from the army for unsoundness of

mind in 1800, fired a pistol at George III from the pit of Drury Lane

theatre. William IV was also the victim of a murderous outrage on Ascot

racecourse in 1832, when John Collins, "a person in the garb of a

sailor, of wretched appearance, and having a wooden leg," threw a stone

at the king, which hit him on the forehead, but did no serious injury.

Collins, when charged, pleaded that he had lost his leg in action, that

he had petitioned without success for a pension, and that, as he was

starving, he had resolved on this desperate deed, feeling, as he said,

that he might as well be shot or hanged as remain in such a state. He

was eventually sentenced to death, but the plea of lunacy was allowed,

and he was confined for life.

None of the foregoing attempts were, however, so dastardly or

determined as that made by Oxford upon Queen Victoria two years after

she ascended the throne. The cowardly crime was probably encouraged

by the fearless and confiding manner in which the Queen, secure as

it seemed in the affections of her loyal people, freely appeared

in public. Oxford, who was only nineteen at the time his offence

was committed, had been born at Birmingham, but he came as a lad to

London, and took service as a pot-boy to a publican. From this he

was promoted to barman, and as such had charge of the business in

various public-houses. He left his last situation in April, 1840,

and established himself in lodgings in Lambeth, after which he

devoted himself to pistol practice in shooting-galleries, sometimes

in Leicester Square, sometimes in the Strand, or the West End. His

acquaintances often asked his object in this, but he kept his own

counsel till the 10th of June. On that day Oxford was on the watch

at Buckingham Palace. He saw Prince Albert return there from a visit

to Woolwich, and then passed on to Constitution Hill, there to wait

until four o'clock in the afternoon, the time at which the Queen and

Prince Consort usually took an afternoon drive. About six o'clock, the

royal carriage, a low open vehicle drawn by four horses, ridden by

postilions, left the palace. Oxford, who had been pacing backwards and

forwards with his hands under the lapels of his coat, saw the carriage

approach. He was on the right or north side of the road. Prince Albert

occupied the same side of the carriage, the Queen the left. As the

carriage came up to him Oxford turned, put his hand into his breast,

drew a pistol, and fired at the Queen.

The shot missed, and as the carriage passed on, Oxford drew a second

pistol and fired again. The Queen saw this second movement, and stooped

to avoid the shot; the Prince too rose to shield her with his person.

Again, providentially, the bullet went wide of the mark, and the royal

party drove back to Clarence House, the Queen being anxious to give the

first news of the outrage and of her safety to her mother, the Duchess

of Kent. Meanwhile the pistol-shots had attracted the attention of the

bystanders, of whom there was a fair collection, as usual, waiting to

see the Queen pass. Oxford was seized by a person named Lowe, who was

at first mistaken for the assailant. But Oxford at once assumed the

responsibility for his crime, saying, "It was I. I did it. I'll give

myself up. There is no occasion to use violence. I will go with you."

He was taken into custody, and removed first to a police cell, thence

committed to Newgate, after he had been examined before the Privy

Council. Oxford expressed little anxiety or concern. He asked more

than once whether the Queen was hurt, and acknowledged that the pistols

were loaded with ball.

A craze for notoriety, to be achieved at any cost, was the one

absorbing idea in young Oxford's disordered brain. After his arrest

he thought only of the excitement his attempt had raised, nothing of

its atrocity, or of the fatal consequences which might have ensued.

When brought to trial he hardly realized his position, but gazed with

complacency around the crowded court, and eagerly inquired what persons

of distinction were present. He smiled continually, and when the

indictment was read, burst into loud and discordant fits of laughter.

These antics may have been assumed to bear out the plea of insanity set

up in his defence, but that there was madness in his family, and that

he himself was of unsound mind, could not be well denied. His father,

it was proved, had been at times quite mad; and Oxford's mental state

might be inferred from his own proceedings and demeanour in court. The

whole of the evidence pointed so strongly towards insanity, that the

jury brought in a verdict of acquittal on that ground, and Oxford was

ordered to be detained during Her Majesty's pleasure. He went from

Newgate first to Bethlehem, from which he was removed to Broadmoor on

the opening of the great criminal lunatic asylum at that place. He was

released from Broadmoor in 1878, and went abroad.

Referring again to the increase of bank forgeries, at one session

of the Old Bailey, in 1821, no less than thirty-five true bills were

found for passing forged notes. But there were other notorious cases of

forgery. That of Fauntleroy the banker, in 1824, caused much excitement

at the time on account of the magnitude of the fraud, and the seeming

probity of the culprit. Mr. Fauntleroy was a member of a banking firm,

which his father had established in conjunction with a gentleman of

the name of Marsh, and others. He had entered the house as clerk in

1800; in 1807, when only twenty-two years of age, he succeeded to his

father's share in the business. According to Fauntleroy's own case,

he found at once that the firm was heavily involved, through advances

made to various builders, and that it could only maintain its credit by

wholesale discounting. Its embarrassments were greatly increased by the

bankruptcy of two of its clients in the building trade, and the bank

became liable for a sum of £170,000. New liabilities were incurred to

the extent of £100,000 by more failures, and in 1819, by the death of

one of the partners, a large sum in cash had to be withdrawn from the

bank to pay his heirs. "During these numerous and trying difficulties,"

says Mr. Fauntleroy, "the house was nearly without resources, and the

whole burthen of management falling on me, . . . I sought resources

where I could;" in other words, he forged powers of attorney and

proceeded to realize securities lodged in his bank under various

names. Among the prisoner's private papers, one was found giving full

details of the stock he had feloniously sold out, the sum amounting

to some £170,000, with a declaration in his own handwriting to the

following effect: "In order to keep up the credit of our house, I have

forged powers of attorney for the above sums and parties, and sold out

to the amount here stated, and without the knowledge of my partners.

I kept up the payments of the dividends, but made no entries of such

payments in my books. The bank began first to refuse our acceptances,

and to destroy the credit of our house; the bank shall smart for it."

Many stories were in circulation at the time of Fauntleroy's trial

with regard to his forgeries. It was said that he had by means of

them sold out so large an amount of stock, that he paid £16,000 a

year in dividends to escape detection. Once he ran a narrow risk

of being found out. A lady in the country, who had £13,000 in the

stocks, desired her London agent to sell them out. He went to the

bank, and found that no stocks stood in her name. He called at once

upon Fauntleroy, his client's banker, for an explanation, and was

told by Mr. Fauntleroy that the lady had desired _him_ to sell out,

"which I have done," added the fraudulent banker, "and here are the

proceeds," whereupon he produced exchequer bills to the amount. Nothing

more was heard of the affair, although the lady declared that she had

never instructed Fauntleroy to sell. On another occasion the banker

forged a gentleman's name while the latter was sitting with him in his

private room, and took the instrument out to a clerk with the ink not

dry. It must be added that the Bank of England, on discovering the

forgeries, replaced the stock in the names of the original holders,

who might otherwise have been completely ruined. A newspaper report of

the time describes Fauntleroy "as a well-made man of middle stature.

His hair, though gray, was thick, and lay smooth over his forehead.

His countenance had an expression of most subdued resignation. The

impression which his appearance altogether was calculated to make was

that of the profoundest commiseration."

The crime, long carried on without detection, was first discovered in

1820, when it was found that a sum of $10,000, standing in the name of

three trustees, of whom Fauntleroy was one, had been sold out under a

forged power of attorney. Further investigations brought other similar

frauds to light, and fixed the whole sum misappropriated at £170,000,

the first forgery dating back to 1814. A run upon the bank immediately

followed, which was only met by a suspension of payment and the closing

of its doors. Meanwhile public gossip was busy with Fauntleroy's name,

and it was openly stated in the press and in conversation that the

proceeds of these frauds had been squandered in dissipation, gambling,

and debauchery. Fauntleroy was scouted as a licentious libertine, a

deep and determined gamester, a spendthrift whose extravagance knew no

bounds. It was said that the dinners he gave were of the most sumptuous

and _recherché_ description. The story goes that one of his most

intimate friends, who attended him to the scaffold, entreated him, as

on the brink of the grave, and unable to take anything out of the world

with him, to reveal the secret of where some wonderful curaçoa was

obtained, for which Fauntleroy's cellar was famous. The veil was lifted

from his private life, and he was accused of persistent immorality. In

his defence he sought to rebut these charges, which indeed were never

clearly made out, and it is pretty certain that his own account of

the causes which led him into dishonesty was substantially true. He

called many witnesses, seventeen in all, to speak of him as they had

found him; and these, all respectable city merchants and business men,

declared that they had hitherto formed a high opinion of his honour,

integrity, and goodness of disposition, deeming him the last person

capable of a dishonourable action.

These arguments availed little with the jury, who after a short

deliberation found Fauntleroy guilty, and he was sentenced to death.

Every endeavour was used, however, to obtain a commutation of sentence.

His case was twice argued before the judges on points of law, but

the result in both cases was unfavourable. Appeals were made to the

Home Secretary, and all possible political interest brought to bear,

but without success. Fauntleroy meanwhile lay in Newgate, not herded

with other condemned prisoners, as the custom was, but in a separate

chamber, that belonging to one of the warders of the gaol. I find in

the chaplain's journal, under date 1824, various entries relative

to this prisoner. "Visited Mr. Fauntleroy. My application for books

for him not having been granted, I had no prayer-book to give him."

"Visited Mr. Fauntleroy. The sheriffs have very kindly permitted him

to remain in the turnkey's room where he was originally placed; nor

can I omit expressing a hope that this may prove the beginning of a

better system of confinement, and that every description of persons who

may be unfortunately under sentence of death will no longer be herded

indiscriminately together." The kindliness of the city authorities to

Fauntleroy was not limited to the assignment of a separate place of

durance.

A very curious and, in its way, amusing circumstance in connection with

this case was the offer of a certain Italian, Edmund Angelini, to take

Fauntleroy's place. Angelini wrote to the Lord Mayor to this effect,

urging that Fauntleroy was a father, a citizen: "His life is useful,

mine a burthen, to the State." He was summoned to the Mansion House,

where he repeated his request, crying, "Accordez moi cette grâce," with

much urgency. There were doubts of his sanity. He wrote afterwards to

the effect that the moment he had offered himself, an unknown assassin

came to aim a blow at him. "Let this monster give his name; I am ready

to fight him. I am still determined to put myself in the place of Mr.

Fauntleroy. If the law of this country can receive such a sacrifice, my

death will render to heaven an innocent man, and to earth a repentant

sinner."

The concourse in front of Newgate was enormous at Fauntleroy's

execution, but much sympathy was evinced for this unfortunate victim

to human weakness and ruthless laws. A report was, moreover, widely

circulated, and the impression long prevailed, that he actually

escaped death. It was said that strangulation had been prevented

by the insertion of a silver tube in his wind-pipe, and that after

hanging for the regulated time he was taken down and easily restored

to consciousness. Afterwards, according to the common rumour, he went

abroad and lived there for many years; but the story is not only wholly

unsubstantiated, but there is good evidence to show that the body after

execution was handed over to his friends and interred privately.

Some years were still to elapse before capital punishment ceased to

be the penalty for forgery, and in the interval several persons were

sentenced and suffered death for this crime. There were two notable

capital convictions for forgery in 1828. One was that of Captain

Montgomery, who assumed the aliases of Colonel Wallace and Colonel

Morgan. His offence was uttering forged notes, and there was strong

suspicion that he had long subsisted entirely by this fraud. The

act for which he was taken into custody was the payment of a forged

ten-pound note for half-a-dozen silver spoons. Montgomery was an adept

at forgery. He had gone wrong early. Although born of respectable

parents, and gazetted to a commission in the army, he soon left the

service and betook himself to dishonest ways. His first forgery was the

marvellous imitation of the signature of the Hon. Mr. Neville, M. P.,

who wrote an extremely cramped and curious hand. He was not prosecuted

for this fraud on account of the respectability of his family, and

soon after this escape he came to London, where he practised as a

professional swindler and cheat. For a long time justice did not

overtake him for any criminal offence, but he was frequently in Newgate

and in the King's Bench for debt. After three years' confinement

in the latter prison he passed himself off as his brother, Colonel

Montgomery, a distinguished officer, and would have married an heiress

had not the imposture been discovered in time. He then took to forging

bank-notes, and was arrested as I have described above. Montgomery was

duly sentenced to death, but he preferred suicide to the gallows. After

sentence his demeanour was serious yet firm. The night previous to that

fixed for his execution he wrote several letters, one of them being to

Edward Gibbon Wakefield, a fellow-prisoner, and listened attentively to

the ordinary, who read him the well-known address written and delivered

by Dr. Dodd previous to his own execution for forgery. But next morning

he was found dead in his cell. In one corner after much search a phial

was found labelled "Prussic acid," which it was asserted he had been

in the habit of carrying about his person ever since he had taken to

passing forged notes, as an "antidote against disgrace." This phial

he had managed to retain in his possession in spite of the frequent

searches to which he was subjected in Newgate.

The second conviction for forgery in 1828 was that of the Quaker

Joseph Hunton, a man previously of the highest repute in the city of

London. He had prospered in early life, was a slop-seller on a large

scale at Bury St. Edmunds, and a sugar-baker in the metropolis. He

married a lady also belonging to the Society of Friends, who brought

him a large fortune, which, together with his own money, he put into

a city firm, that of Dickson and Company. Soon after he became deeply

involved in Stock Exchange speculations, and losing heavily, to meet

the claims upon him he put out a number of forged bills of exchange

or acceptances, to which the signature of one Wilkins of Abingdon was

found to be forged. Hunton tried to fly the country on the detection

of the fraud, but was arrested at Plymouth just as he was on the point

of leaving England in the New York packet. He had gone on board in

his Quaker dress, but when captured was found in a light-green frock,

a pair of light-gray pantaloons, a black stock and a foraging cap.

Hunton was put upon his trial at the Old Bailey, and in due course

sentenced to death. His defence was that the forged acceptances would

have been met on coming to maturity, and that he had no real desire to

defraud. Hunton accepted his sentence with great resignation, although

he protested against the inhumanity of the laws which condemned him

to death. On entering Newgate he said, "I wish after this day to

have communication with nobody; let me take leave of my wife, and

family, and friends. I have already suffered an execution; my heart

has undergone that horrible penalty." He was, however, visited by and

received his wife, and several members of the Society of Friends. Two

elders of the meeting sat up with him in the press-yard the whole of

the night previous to execution, and a third, Mr. Sparks Moline, came

to attend him to the scaffold. He met his death with unshaken firmness,

only entreating that a certain blue handkerchief, to which he seemed

fondly attached, should be used to bandage his eyes, which request was

readily granted.

Hunton's execution no doubt aroused public attention to the cruelty

and futility of the capital law against forgery. A society which had

already been started against capital punishment devoted its efforts

first to a mitigation of the forgery statute, but could not immediately

accomplish much. In 1829 the gallows claimed two more victims for this

offence. One was Richard Gifford, a well-educated youth who had been

at Christ's Hospital, and afterwards in the National Debt Office.

Unfortunately he took to drink, lost his appointment, and fell from

bad to worse. Suddenly, after reaching the lowest depths, he emerged,

and was found by his friends living in comfort in the Waterloo Road.

His funds, which he pretended came to him with a rich wife, were

really the proceeds of frauds upon the Bank of England. He forged the

names of people who held stock on the Bank books, and got the value

of the stock; he also forged dividend receipts and got the dividends.

He was only six-and-twenty when he was hanged. The other and the last

criminal executed for forgery in England was one Maynard, who was

convicted of a fraud upon the Custom House. In conjunction with two

others, one of whom was a clerk in the Custom House, and had access to

the official records, he forged a warrant for £1,973, and was paid the

money by the comptroller general. Maynard was convicted of uttering the

forged document, Jones of being an accessory; the third prisoner was

acquitted. Maynard was the only one who suffered death.

This execution was on the last day of the year 1829. In the following

session Sir Robert Peel brought in a bill to consolidate the acts

relating to forgery. Upon the third reading of this bill Sir James

Macintosh moved as an amendment that capital punishment should be

abolished for all crimes of forgery, except the forgery of wills and

powers of attorney. This amendment was strongly supported outside the

House, and a petition in favour of its passing was presented, signed by

more than a thousand members of banking firms. Macintosh's amendment

was carried in the Commons, but the new law did not pass the Lords, who

re-enacted the capital penalty. Still no sentence of death was carried

out for the offence, and in 1832 the Attorney-General introduced a

bill to entirely abolish capital punishment for forgery. It passed the

Commons, but opposition was again encountered in the Lords. This time

they sent the bill back, re-enacting only the two penalties for will

forging and the forging of powers of attorney; in other words, they

had advanced in 1832 to the point at which the Lower House had arrived

in 1830. There were at the moment in Newgate six convicts sentenced to

death for forging wills. The question was whether the Government would

dare to take their lives at the bidding of the House of Lords, and in

defiance of the vote of the assembly which more accurately represented

public opinion. It was indeed announced that their fate was sealed; but

Mr. Joseph Hume pressed the Government hard, and obtained an assurance

that the men should not be executed. The new Forgery Act with the

Lords' amendment passed into law, but the latter proved perfectly

harmless, and no person ever after suffered death for any variety of

this crime.

One of the last instances of a crime which in time past had invariably

been visited with the death penalty,[217:1] and which was of a

distinctly fraudulent nature should be noted here. The abduction of

Miss Turner by the brothers Wakefield bore a strong resemblance to the

carrying off and forcible marrying of heiresses as already described in

a previous chapter. Miss Turner was a school-girl of barely fifteen,

only child of a gentleman of large property in Cheshire, of which

county he was actually high sheriff at the time of his daughter's

abduction. The elder brother, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, the prime mover

in the abduction, was a barrister not exactly briefless, but without

a large practice. He had, it was said, a good private income, and

was already a widower with two children at the time he committed the

offence for which he was subsequently tried. He had eloped with his

first wife from school. While on a visit to Macclesfield he heard by

chance of Miss Turner, and that she would inherit all her father's

possessions. He thereupon conceived an idea of carrying her off and

marrying her willy nilly at Gretna Green. The two brothers started

at once for Liverpool, where Miss Turner was at school with a Mrs.

Daulby. At Manchester, _en route_, a travelling carriage was purchased,

which was driven up to Mrs. Daulby's door at eight in the morning, and

a servant hurriedly alighted from it, bearing a letter for Miss Turner.

This purported to be from the medical attendant of Mr. Turner, written

at Shrigley, Mr. Turner's place of residence; and it stated that Mrs.

Turner had been stricken with paralysis. She was not in immediate

danger, but she wished to see her daughter, "as it was possible she

might soon become incapable of recognizing any one." Miss Turner,

greatly agitated, accompanied the messenger who had brought this news,

a disguised servant of Wakefield's, who had plausibly explained that

he had only recently been engaged at Shrigley. The road taken was viâ

Manchester, where the servant said a Dr. Hull was to be picked up to go

on with them to Shrigley.

At Manchester, however, the carriage stopped at the Albion Hotel.

Miss Turner was shown into a private room, where Mr. Wakefield soon

presented himself. Miss Turner, not knowing him, would have left the

room, but he said he came from her father, and she remained. Wakefield,

in reply to her inquiries, satisfied her that her mother was well,

and that the real reason for summoning her from school was the state

of her father's affairs. Mr. Turner was on the verge of bankruptcy.

He was at that moment at Kendal, and wished her to join him there at

once. Miss Turner consented to go on, and they travelled night and

day towards the north. But at Kendal there was no Mr. Turner, and, to

allay Miss Turner's growing anxiety, Wakefield found it necessary to

become more explicit regarding her father's affairs. He now pretended

that Mr. Turner was also on his way to the border, pursued by sheriffs'

officers. The fact was, Wakefield went on to say, an uncle of his had

advanced Mr. Turner £60,000, which had temporarily staved off ruin.

But another bank had since failed, and nothing could save Mr. Turner

but the transfer of some property to Miss Turner, and its settlement

on her, so that it might become the exclusive property of her husband,

"whoever he might be." Wakefield added that it had been suggested

he should marry Miss Turner, but that he had laughed at the idea.

Wakefield's uncle took the matter more seriously, and declared that

unless the marriage came off Mr. Turner must be sold up. Miss Turner,

thus pressed, consented to go on to Gretna Green. Passing through

Carlisle, she was told that Mr. Turner was in the town, but could

not show himself. Nothing could release him from his trouble but the

arrival of the marriage certificate from Gretna Green. Filial affection

rose superior to all scruples, and Miss Turner, having crossed the

border, was married to Wakefield by the blacksmith in the usual way.

Returning to Carlisle, she now heard that her father had been set

free, and had gone home to Shrigley, whither they were to follow him.

They set out, but at Leeds Wakefield found himself called suddenly to

Paris; the other brother was accordingly sent on a pretended mission

to Shrigley to bring Mr. Turner on to London, whither Wakefield and

Miss Turner also proceeded. On arrival, Wakefield pretended that

they had missed Mr. Turner, and must follow him over to France. The

strangely-married couple thereupon pressed on to Dover, and crossed

over to Calais.

The fact of the abduction did not transpire for some days. Then Mrs.

Daulby learned that Miss Turner had not arrived at Shrigley, but that

she had gone to Manchester. Friends went in pursuit and traced her to

Huddersfield and further north. The terror and dismay of her parents

were soon intensified by the receipt of a letter from Wakefield, at

Carlisle, announcing the marriage. Mr. Turner at once set off for

London, where he sought the assistance of the police, and presently

ascertained that Wakefield had gone to the Continent with his

involuntary bride. An uncle of Miss Wakefield's, accompanied by his

solicitor and a Bow Street runner, at once went in pursuit. Meanwhile,

a second letter turned up from Wakefield at Calais, in which he assured

Mrs. Turner that Miss Turner was fondly attached to him, and went on to

say, "I do assure you, madam, that it shall be the anxious endeavour of

my life to promote her happiness by every means in my power." The game,

however, was nearly up. Miss Turner was met by her uncle on Calais

pier as she was walking with Wakefield. The uncle claimed her. The

husband resisted. M. le Maire was appealed to, and decided to leave it

to the young lady, who at once abandoned Wakefield. As he still urged

his rights over his wife, Miss Turner cried out in protest, "No, no, I

am not his wife; he carried me away by fraud and stratagem, and forced

me to accompany him to Gretna Green. . . . By the same forcible means I

was compelled to quit England, and to trust myself to the protection

of this person, whom I never saw until I was taken from Liverpool, and

never want to see again." On this Wakefield gave in. He surrendered the

bride who had never been a wife, and she returned to England with her

friends, while Wakefield went on alone to Paris.

Mr. William Wakefield was arrested at Dover, conveyed to Chester,

and committed to Lancaster Gaol for trial at the next assizes, when

indictments were preferred against both brothers "for having carried

away Ellen Turner, spinster, then a maid and heir apparent unto her

father, for the sake of the lucre of her substance; and for having

afterwards unlawfully and against her will married the said Ellen

Turner." They were tried in March of the following year, Edward

Wakefield having apparently given himself up, and found guilty,

remaining in Lancaster Gaol for a couple of months, when they were

brought up to the court of King's Bench for judgment. The prosecution

pressed for a severe penalty. Edward Wakefield pleaded that his trial

had already cost him £3,000. Mr. Justice Bayley, in summing up, spoke

severely of the gross deception practised upon an innocent girl, and

sentenced the brothers each to three years' imprisonment, William

Wakefield in Lancaster Gaol, and Edward Gibbon Wakefield in Newgate,

which sentences were duly enforced. The marriage was annulled by an

Act of Parliament, although Wakefield petitioned against it, and was

brought from Newgate, at his own request, to oppose the second reading

of the bill. He also wrote and published a pamphlet from the gaol to

show that Miss Turner had been a consenting party to the marriage, and

was really his wife. Neither his address nor his pamphlet availed much,

for the bill for the divorce passed both Houses.

Having brought down the record of great frauds and forgeries to the

third and fourth decades of the nineteenth century some account must be

given of the more remarkable murders during that period.

No murder has created greater sensation and horror throughout England

than that of Mr. Weare by Thurtell, Hunt and Probert. The principal

actor was tried and executed at Hertford, but Probert, who turned

King's evidence and materially assisted conviction, was tried at

the Old Bailey the following year for horse-stealing, and hanged

in front of Newgate. The murder was still fresh in the memory of

the populace, and Probert was all but lynched on his way to gaol.

According to his statement, when sentenced to death, he had been driven

to horse-stealing by the execration which had pursued him after the

murder. Every door had been closed against him, every hope of future

support blasted. "Since the calamitous event that happened at Hertford,

I have been a lost man." The event which he styles calamitous we may

well characterize as one of the most deliberately atrocious murders

on record. Thurtell was a gambler, and Weare had won a good deal of

money from him. Weare was supposed to carry a "private bank" about

with him in a pocket in his under waistcoat. To obtain possession of

this, Thurtell with his two associates resolved to kill him. The victim

was invited to visit Probert's cottage in the country near Elstree.

Thurtell drove him down in a gig, "to be killed as he travelled," in

Thurtell's own words. The others followed, and on overtaking Thurtell,

found he had done the job alone in a retired part of the road known

as Gill's Hill Lane. The murderer explained that he had first fired a

pistol at Weare's head, but the shot glanced off his cheek. Then he

attacked the other's throat with a penknife, and last of all drove

the pistol barrel into his forehead. After the murder the villains

divided the spoil, and went on to Probert's cottage, and supped off

pork-chops brought down on purpose. During the night they sought to

dispose of the body by throwing it into a pond, but two days later

had to throw it into another pond. Meanwhile the discovery of pistol

and knife spattered with human blood and brains raised the alarm, and

suspicion fell upon the three murderers, who were arrested. The crime

was brought home to Thurtell by the confession of Hunt, one of his

accomplices, who took the police to the pond, where the remains of

the unfortunate Mr. Weare were discovered, sunk in a sack weighted by

stones. Probert was then admitted as a witness, and the case was fully

proved against Thurtell, who was hanged in front of Hertford Gaol.

Hunt, in consideration of the information he had given, escaped death,

and was sentenced to transportation for life.

Widespread horror and indignation was evoked throughout the kingdom

by the discovery of the series of atrocious murders perpetrated in

Edinburgh by the miscreants Burke and Hare, the first of whom has added

to the British language a synonym for illegal suppression. The crimes

of these inhuman purveyors to medical science do not fall within the

limits of this work. But Burke and Hare had their imitators further

south, and of these Bishop and Williams, who were guilty of many

peculiar atrocities, ended their murderous careers in front of the

debtors' door at Newgate. Bishop, whose real name was Head, married a

half-sister of Williams'. Williams was a professional resurrectionist,

or body-snatcher, a trade almost openly countenanced when "subjects"

for the anatomy schools were only to be got by rifling graves, or

worse. Bishop was a carpenter, but having been suddenly thrown out

of work, he joined his brother-in-law in his line of business. After

a little Bishop got weary of the dangers and fatigues of exhumation,

and proposed to Williams that instead of disinterring they should

murder their subjects. Bishop confessed that he was moved to this

by the example of Burke and Hare. They pursued their terrible trade

for five years without scruple and without detection. Eventually the

law overtook them, but almost by accident. They presented themselves

about noon one day at the dissecting room of King's College Hospital,

accompanied by a third man, an avowed "snatcher" and _habitué_ of the

"Fortune of War," a public-house in Smithfield frequented openly by men

of this awful profession. This man, May, asked the porter at King's

College if "he wanted anything?" the euphemism for offering a body.

The porter asked what he had got, and the answer was, a male subject.

Reference was made to Mr. Partridge, the demonstrator in anatomy,

and after some haggling they agreed on a price, and in the afternoon

the snatchers brought a hamper which contained a body in a sack. The

porter received it, but from its freshness became suspicious of foul

play. Mr. Partridge was sent for, and he with some of the students soon

decided that the corpse had not died a natural death. The snatchers

were detained, the police sent for, and arrest followed as a matter of

course.

An inquest was held on the body, which was identified as that of an

Italian boy, Carlo Ferrari, who made a living by exhibiting white mice

about the streets, and the jury returned a verdict of wilful murder

against persons unknown, expressing a strong opinion that Bishop,

Williams, and May had been concerned in the transaction. Meanwhile,

a search had been made at Nova Scotia Gardens, Bethnal Green, where

Bishop and Williams lived. At first nothing peculiar was found; but at

a second search the back-garden ground was dug up, and in one corner,

at some depth, a bundle of clothes were unearthed, which, with a hairy

cap, were known to be what Ferrari had worn when last seen. In another

portion of the garden more clothing, partly male and partly female, was

discovered, plainly pointing to the perpetration of other crimes. These

facts were represented before the police magistrate who examined Bishop

and his fellows, and further incriminating evidence adduced, to the

effect that the prisoners had bartered for a coach to carry "a stiff

'un;" they had also been seen to leave their cottage, carrying out a

sack with something heavy inside. On this they were fully committed to

Newgate for trial. This trial came off in due course at the Central

Criminal Court, where the prisoners were charged on two counts, one

that of the murder of the Italian boy, the other that of a boy unknown.

The evidence from first to last was circumstantial, but the jury,

after a short deliberation, did not hesitate to bring in a verdict of

guilty, and all three were condemned to death.

Shortly before the day fixed for execution, Bishop made a full

confession, the bulk of which bore the impress of truth, although

it included statements that were improbable and unsubstantiated. He

asserted that the victim was a Lincolnshire lad, and not an Italian

boy, although the latter was fully proved. According to the confession,

death had been inflicted by drowning in a well, whereas the medical

evidence all pointed to violence. It was, however, pretty clear that

this victim, like preceding ones, had been lured to Nova Scotia

Gardens, and there drugged with a large dose of laudanum. While they

were in a state of insensibility the murder was committed. Bishop's

confession was endorsed by Williams, and the immediate result was the

respite of May. A very painful scene occurred in Newgate when the news

of his escape from death was imparted to May. He fainted, and the

warrant of mercy nearly proved his death-blow. The other two looked

on at his agitation with an indifference amounting to apathy. The

execution took place a week or two later, in the presence of such a

crowd as had not been seen near Newgate for years.

The murder of Hannah Brown is still fresh in the minds of Londoners,

although half a century has passed since it was committed. The horror

with which Greenacre's crime struck the town was unparalleled

since the time when Catherine Hayes slew her husband. There were

many features of resemblance in these crimes. The decapitation and

dismemberment, the bestowal of the remains in various parts of the

town, the preservation of the head in spirits of wine, in the hope

that the features might some day be recognized, were alike in both.

The murder in both cases was long a profound mystery. In this which

I am now describing, a bricklayer found a human trunk near some new

buildings in the Edgeware Road one morning in the last week of 1836.

The inquest on these remains, which medical examination showed to be

those of a female, returned a verdict of wilful murder against some

person unknown. Early in January, 1837, the lockman of "Ben Jonson

lock," in Stepney Fields, found a human head jammed into the lock

gates. Closer investigation proved that it belonged to the trunk

already discovered as mentioned above. A further discovery was made

in an osier bed near Cold Harbour Lane, Camberwell, where a workman

found a bundle containing two human legs, in a drain. These were the

missing members of the same mutilated trunk, and there was now evidence

sufficient to establish conclusively that the woman thus collected

piecemeal had been barbarously done to death. But the affair still

remained a profound mystery. No light was thrown upon it till, towards

the end of March, a Mr. Gay of Goodge Street came to view the head,

and immediately recognized it as that of a widowed sister, Hannah

Brown, who had been missing since the previous Christmas Day.

The murdered individual was thus identified. The next step was to

ascertain where and with whom she had last been seen. This brought

suspicion on to a certain James Greenacre, whom she was to have

married, and in whose company she had left her own lodgings to visit

his in Camberwell. The police wished to refer to Greenacre, but as

he was not forthcoming, a warrant was issued for his apprehension,

which was effected at Kennington on the 24th March. A woman named

Gale, who lived with him, was arrested at the same time. The prisoners

were examined at the Marylebone police court. Greenacre, a stout,

middle-aged man, wrapped in a brown greatcoat, assumed an air of

insolent bravado; but his despair must have been great, as was evident

from his attempt to strangle himself in the station-house. Suspicion

grew almost to a certainty as the evidence was unfolded. Mrs. Brown was

a washerwoman, supposed to be worth some money; hence Greenacre's offer

of marriage. She had realized all her effects, and brought them with

her furniture to Greenacre's lodgings. The two when married were to

emigrate to Hudson's Bay. Whether it was greed or a quarrel that drove

Greenacre to the desperate deed remains obscure. They were apparently

good friends when last seen together at a neighbour's, where they

seemed "perfectly happy and sociable, and eager for the wedding day."

But Greenacre in his confession pretended that he and his intended had

quarrelled over her property or the want of it, and that in a moment

of anger he knocked her down. He thought he had killed her, and in his

terror began at once to consider how he might dispose of the body and

escape arrest. While she was senseless, but really still alive, he cut

off her head, and dismembered the body in the manner already described.

It is scarcely probable that he would have gone to this extremity if he

had had no previous evil intention, and the most probable inference is

that he inveigled Mrs. Brown to his lodgings with the set purpose of

taking her life.

His measures for the disposal of the _corpus delicti_ remind us of

those taken by Mrs. Hayes and her associates, or of Gardelle's frantic

efforts to conceal his crime. The most ghastly part of the story is

that which deals with his disposal of the head. This, wrapped up in

a silk handkerchief, he carried under his coat-flaps through the

streets, and afterwards on his cap in a crowded city omnibus. It was

not until he left the 'bus, and walked up by the Regent's Canal, that

he conceived the idea of throwing the head into the water. Another

day elapsed before he got rid of the rest of the body, all of which,

according to his own confession, made with the idea of exonerating Mrs.

Gale, he accomplished without her assistance. On the other hand, it was

adduced in evidence that Mrs. Gale had been at his lodgings the very

day after the murder, and was seen to be busily engaged in washing down

the house with bucket and mop.

Greenacre, when tried at the Old Bailey, admitted that he had been

guilty of manslaughter. While conversing with Mrs. Brown, he declared

the unfortunate woman was rocking herself to and fro in a chair; as she

leaned back he put his foot against the chair, and so tilted it over.

Mrs. Brown fell with it, and Greenacre, to his horror, found that she

was dead. But the medical evidence was clear that the decapitation had

been effected during life, and the jury, after a short deliberation,

without hesitation brought in a verdict of wilful murder. The woman

Gale was also found guilty, but sentence of death was passed only

on Greenacre. The execution was, as usual, attended by an immense

concourse, and Greenacre died amidst the loudest execrations. Gale was

sentenced to penal servitude for life.

The gravest crimes continued at intervals to inspire the town with

horror, and concentrate public attention upon the gaol of Newgate,

and the murderers immured within its walls. Courvoisier's case

made a great stir. There was unusual atrocity in this murder of an

aged, infirm gentleman, a scion of the ducal house of Bedford, by

his confidential valet and personal attendant. Lord William Russell

lived alone in Norfolk Street, Park Lane. He was a widower, and

seventy-three years of age. One morning in May his lordship was found

dead in his bed with his throat cut. The fact of the murder was first

discovered by the housemaid, who, on going down early, was surprised

to find the dining-room in a state of utter confusion; the furniture

turned upside down, the drawers of the escritoire open and rifled, a

bundle lying on the floor, as though thieves had been interrupted in

the act. The housemaid summoned the cook, and both went to call the

valet, Courvoisier, who came from his room ready dressed, a suspicious

circumstance, as he was always late in the morning. The housemaid

suggested that they should see if his lordship was all right, and the

three went to his bed-room. While Courvoisier opened the shutters, the

housemaid, approaching the bed, saw that the pillow was saturated with

blood.

The discovery of the murdered man immediately followed. The

neighbourhood was alarmed, the police sent for, and a close inquiry

forthwith commenced. That Lord William Russell had committed suicide

was at once declared impossible. It was also clearly proved that

no forcible entry had been made into the house; the fresh marks of

violence upon the door had evidently been made inside, and not from

outside; moreover, the instruments, poker and chisel, by which they

had no doubt been effected, were found in the butler's pantry, used

by Courvoisier. The researches of the police soon laid bare other

suspicious facts. The bundle found in the dining-room contained, with

clothes, various small articles of plate and jewelry which a thief

would probably have put into his pocket. Upstairs in the bed-room a

_rouleaux_ box for sovereigns had been broken open, also the jewel-box

and note-case, from the latter of which was abstracted a ten-pound note

known to have been in the possession of the deceased. His lordship's

watch was gone. Further suspicion was caused by the position of a book

and a wax candle by the bedside. The latter was so placed that it would

throw no light on the book, which was a "Life of Sir Samuel Romilly."

The intention of the real murderer to shift the crime to burglars was

evident although futile, and the police, feeling convinced that the

crime had been committed by some inmate of the house, took Courvoisier

into custody, and placed the two female servants under surveillance.

The valet's strange demeanour had attracted attention from the first.

He had hung over the body in a state of dreadful agitation, answering

no questions, and taking no part in the proceedings.

Three days later a close search of the butler's pantry produced fresh

circumstantial evidence. Behind the skirting board several of his

lordship's rings were discovered; near it was his Waterloo medal, and

the above-mentioned ten-pound note. Further investigation was rewarded

by the discovery in the pantry of a split gold ring, used by Lord

William, to carry his keys on; next, and in the same place, a chased

gold key; and at last his lordship's watch was found secreted under

the leads of the sink. All this was evidence sufficient to warrant

Courvoisier's committal for trial; but still he found friends, and a

liberal subscription was raised among the foreign servants in London

to provide funds for his defence. Courvoisier, when put on his trial,

pleaded not guilty; but on the second day the discovery of fresh

evidence, more particularly the recovery of some of Lord William's

stolen plate, induced the prisoner to make a full confession of his

crime to the lawyers who defended him. This placed them in a position

of much embarrassment. To have thrown up their brief would have been

to have secured Courvoisier's conviction. Mr. Phillips, who led in

the case, went to the other extreme, and in an impassioned address

implored the jury not to send an innocent man to the gallows. It will

be remembered that the question whether Mr. Phillips had not exceeded

the limits usually allowed to counsel was much debated at the time.

The jury without hesitation found Courvoisier guilty, and he was

sentenced to death. The prisoner's demeanour had greatly changed during

the trial. Coolness amounting almost to effrontery gave way to hopeless

dejection. On his removal to Newgate after sentence, he admitted that

he had been justly convicted, and expressed great anxiety that his

fellow-servants should be relieved from all suspicion. Later in the

day he tried to commit suicide by cramming a towel down his throat,

but was prevented. Next morning he made a full confession in presence

of his attorney, and the governor, Mr. Cope. In this he gave as the

motives of his crime a quarrel he had with his master, who threatened

to discharge him without a character. Lord William, according to the

valet, was of a peevish, difficult temper; he was annoyed with his

man for various small omissions and acts of forgetfulness, and on the

night of the murder had taken Courvoisier to task rather sharply.

Finally, on coming downstairs after bed-time, Lord William had found

Courvoisier in the dining-room. "What are you doing here?" asked his

lordship. "You can have no good intentions; you must quit my service

to-morrow morning." This seems to have decided Courvoisier, who took

a carving-knife from the side-board in the dining-room, went upstairs

to Lord William's bed-room, and drew the knife across his throat. "He

appeared to die instantly," said the murderer, in conclusion. His

account of his acts and movements after the deed varied so considerably

in the several documents he left behind, that too much reliance cannot

be placed upon his confession. His last statement contains the words,

"The public now think I am a liar, and they will not believe me when

I say the truth." This was no doubt the case, but this much truth

his confession may be taken to contain: that Courvoisier was idle,

discontented, ready to take offence, greedy of gain; that he could not

resist the opportunity of robbery offered him by his situation at Lord

William Russell's; that when vexed with his master he did not shrink

from murder, both for revenge and to conceal his other crimes.

Courvoisier wished to commit suicide in Newgate, but was prevented by

the vigilant supervision to which he was subjected while in gaol. The

attempt was to have been made by opening a vein and allowing himself

to bleed to death. The Sunday night before his execution he would not

go to bed when ordered. The governor insisted, but Courvoisier showed

great reluctance to strip. The order was, however, at length obeyed,

and the whole of the prisoner's clothes were minutely searched. In

the pocket of the coat Mr. Cope, the governor, found a neatly folded

cloth, and asked what it was for. Courvoisier admitted that he had

intended to bind it tightly round his arm and bleed himself to death

in the night. The next inquiry was how he hoped to open a vein. "With

a bit of sharpened stick picked out of the ordinary firewood." "Where

is it?" asked the governor. The prisoner replied that he had left it in

the mattress of which he had just been deprived. The bed was searched,

but no piece of sharpened wood was found. It was thought that it might

have been lost in changing the mattresses. The cloth above referred to

belonged to the inner seam of his trousers, which he had managed to

tear out. There is nothing to show that Courvoisier really contemplated

self-destruction.

A murder which reproduced many of the features of that committed by

Greenacre soon followed, and excited the public mind even more than

that of Courvoisier's. Daniel Good's crime might have remained long

undiscovered but for his own careless stupidity. He was coachman to

a gentleman at Roehampton. One day he went into a pawnbroker's at

Wandsworth, and bought a pair of breeches on credit. At the same time

he was seen to steal and secrete a pair of trousers. The shop-boy gave

information. Good was followed to his stables by a policeman, but

obstinately denied the theft. The policeman insisted on searching the

premises, at which Good displayed some uneasiness. This increased when

the officer, accompanied by two others, a neighbour and a bailiff,

entered one of the stables. Good now offered to go to Wandsworth and

satisfy the pawnbroker. Just at this moment, however, the searchers

found concealed under two trusses of hay a woman's headless and

dismembered trunk. At the constable's cry of alarm Good rushed from

the stable and locked the door behind him. Some time elapsed before

the imprisoned party could force open the doors, and by then the

fugitive had escaped. Medical assistance having been summoned, it was

ascertained how the dismemberment had been effected. At the same time

an overpowering odour attracted them to the adjoining harness-room,

where the missing remains were raked out half consumed in the ashes of

a wood fire. In the same room a large axe and saw were found covered

with blood.

Inquiry into the character of Good exposed him as a loose liver, who

"kept company" with several women. One called his sister, but supposed

to be his wife, had occupied a room in South Street, Manchester

Square, with a son of Good's by a former wife. Another wife, real or

fictitious, existed in Spitalfields, and evidence was given of close

relation between Good and a third woman, a girl named Butcher, residing

at Woolwich. The victim was the first of these three. Good had told

her, much to her perturbation, that she was to move from South Street

to Roehampton, and one day he fetched her. They were seen together on

Barnes Common, and again in Putney Park Lane, where they were talking

loud and angrily. The poor creature was never seen again alive. The

actual method of the murder was never exactly ascertained. Good himself

remained at large for some weeks. He had tramped as far as Tunbridge,

where he obtained work as a bricklayer's labourer; he there gave

satisfaction for industry, but he was taciturn, and would hold no

converse with his fellows. The woman where he lodged noticed that he

was very restless at night, moaning and sighing much. Detection came

unexpectedly. He was recognized by an ex-policeman who had known him

at Roehampton, and immediately arrested. In his effects were found the

clothes he had on at the time of his escape from the stables, and under

the jacket he was wearing was a piece of a woman's calico apron stained

with blood, which he had used to save the pressure on his shoulder

by the hod. Good was committed to Newgate, and tried at the Central

Criminal Court before a crowded court. He made a rambling defence,

ending by saying, "Good ladies and gentlemen all, I have a great deal

more to say, but I am so bad I cannot say it." The case was clearly

proved against him, and he was condemned, sentenced, and duly executed.

Hocker's murder is in its way interesting, as affording another proof

of the extraordinary way in which the culprit returned to the scene of

his guilt. The cries of his victim, a Mr. Delarue, brought passers-by

and policemen to the spot, a lonely place near a dead wall beyond

Belsize Hall, Hampstead, but too late to give substantial aid. While

the body lay there still warm, battered and bleeding from the cruel

blows inflicted upon him by his cowardly assailant, a man came by

singing. He entered into conversation with the policemen, and learned,

as it seemed for the first time, what had happened. His remark was, "It

is a nasty job;" he took hold of the dead hand, and confessed that he

felt "queer" at the shocking sight. This sight was his own handiwork,

yet he could not overcome the strange fascination it had for him, and

remained by the side of the corpse till the stretcher came. Even then

he followed it as far as Belsize Lane. It was here that the others

engaged in their dismal office of removing the dead first got a good

look at the stranger's face. He wanted a light for a cigar, and got it

from a lantern which was lifted up and fully betrayed his features. It

was noticed that he wore a mackintosh. Next day the police, in making

a careful search of the scene of the murder, picked up a coat-button,

which afterwards played an important part in the identification of

the murderer. A letter, which afforded an additional clue, was also

found in the pocket of the deceased. Still it was many weeks before

any arrest was made. In the meantime the police were not idle. It

came out by degrees that the person who had been seen in Belsize Lane

on the night the body was found was a friend of the deceased. His

name was Hocker; he was by trade a ladies' shoemaker; and it was also

ascertained that after the day of the murder he was flush of money. He

was soon afterwards arrested on suspicion, and a search of his lodgings

brought to light several garments saturated with blood; a coat among

them much torn and stained, with three buttons missing, one of which

corresponded with that picked up at Hampstead. The letter found in

the pocket of the deceased was sealed with a wafer marked F, and many

of the same sort were found in the possession of the accused. This

was enough to obtain a committal, after several remands; but the case

contained elements of doubt, and the evidence at the trial was entirely

circumstantial. A witness deposed to meeting Hocker, soon after the

cries of murder were heard, running at a dog-trot into London, and

others swore that they plainly recognized him as the man seen soon

afterwards in the lane. A woman whom he called on the same evening

declared he had worn a mackintosh, his coat was much torn, there was a

stain of blood on his shirt-cuff, and he was in possession, the first

time to her knowledge, of a watch. This was Delarue's watch, fully

identified as such, which Hocker told his brother Delarue had given him

the morning of the murder.

These were damnatory facts which well supported the prosecution. The

prisoner made an elaborate defence, in which he sought to vilify the

character of the deceased as the seducer of an innocent girl to whom

he (Hocker) had been fondly attached. When her ruin was discovered

her brother panted for revenge. Hocker, whose skill in counterfeiting

handwriting was known, was asked to fabricate a letter making an

assignation with Delarue in a lonely part of Hampstead. Hocker and

the brother went to the spot, where the latter left him to meet his

sister's seducer alone. Soon afterwards Hocker heard cries of "murder,"

and proceeding to where they came from, found Delarue dead, slain

by the furious brother. Hocker was so overcome, feeling himself the

principal cause of the tragedy, that he rushed to a slaughter-house

in Hampstead and purposely stained his clothes with blood. Such an

extravagant defence did not weigh with judge or jury; the first

summed up dead against the prisoner, and the latter, after retiring

for ten minutes, found him guilty. Hocker's conduct in Newgate while

under sentence of death was most extraordinary. He drew up several

long statements, containing narratives purely fictitious, imputing

crimes to his victim, and repeating his line of defence, that Delarue

had suffered by the hands of imaginary outraged brothers acting as

the avengers of females deeply injured by him. Hocker made several

pretended confessions and revelations, all of which were proved to be

absolutely false by the police on inquiry. His demeanour was a strange

compound of wickedness, falsehood, and deceit. But at the fatal hour

his hardihood forsook him, and he was almost insensible when taken out

of his cell for execution. Restoratives were applied, but he was in a

fainting condition when tied, and had to be supported by the assistant

executioner while Calcraft adjusted the noose.

There was an epidemic of murder in the United Kingdom about 1848-9.

In November of the first-named year occurred the wholesale slaughter

of the Jermys in their house, Stanfield Hall, by the miscreant Rush.

Soon afterwards, in Gloucestershire, a maidservant, Sarah Thomas,

murdered her mistress, an aged woman, by beating out her brains with a

stone. Next year John Gleeson Wilson, at Liverpool, murdered a woman,

Ann Henrichson, also a maidservant and two children; while in Ireland

a wife dashed out her husband's brains with a hammer. London did not

escape the contagion, and prominent among the detestable crimes of

the period stands that of the Mannings at Bermondsey. These great

criminals suffered at Horsemonger Lane Gaol, but they were tried at

the Central Criminal Court, and were for some time inmates of Newgate.

Their victim was a man named Patrick O'Connor, a Custom-House gauger,

who had been a suitor of Marie de Roux before she became Mrs. Manning.

Marie de Roux up to the time of her marriage had been in service as

lady's-maid to Lady Blantyre, daughter of the Duchess of Sutherland,

and Manning hoped to get some small Government appointment through

his wife's interest. He had failed in this as well as in the business

of a publican, which he had at one time adopted. After the marriage a

close intimacy was still maintained between O'Connor and the Mannings.

He lived at Mile End, whence he walked often to call at No. 3, Minver

Place, Bermondsey, the residence of his old love. O'Connor was a

man of substance. He had long followed the profitable trade of a

money-lender, and by dint of usurious interest on small sums advanced

to needy neighbours, had amassed as much as ten thousand pounds. His

wealth was well known to "Maria," as he called Mrs. Manning, who made

several ineffectual attempts to get money out of him. At last this

fiendish woman made up her mind to murder O'Connor and appropriate

all his possessions. Her husband, to whom she coolly confided her

intention, a heavy brutish fellow, was yet aghast at his wife's

resolve, and tried hard to dissuade her from her bad purpose. In his

confession after sentence he declared that she plied him well with

brandy at this period, and that during the whole time he was never in

his right senses. Meanwhile this woman, unflinching in her cold, bloody

determination, carefully laid all her plans for the consummation of the

deed.

One fine afternoon in August, O'Connor was met walking in the direction

of Bermondsey. He was dressed with particular care, as he was to dine

at the Mannings, and meet friends, one a young lady. He was seen

afterwards smoking and talking with his hosts in their back parlour,

and never seen again alive. It came out in the husband's confession

that Mrs. Manning induced O'Connor to go down to the kitchen to wash

his hands, that she followed him to the basement, that she stood behind

him as he stood near the open grave she herself had dug for him, and

which he mistook for a drain, and that while he was speaking to her she

put the muzzle of the pistol close to the back of his head and shot him

down. She ran upstairs, told her husband, made him go down and look

at her handiwork, and as O'Connor was not quite dead, Manning gave

the _coup de grâce_ with a crowbar. After this Mrs. Manning changed

her dress and went off in a cab to O'Connor's lodgings, which, having

possessed herself of the murdered man's keys, she rifled from end to

end. Returning to her own home, where Manning meantime had been calmly

smoking and talking to the neighbours over the basement wall, the

corpse lying just inside the kitchen all the while, the two set to

work to strip the body and hide it under the stones of the floor. This

job was not completed till the following day, as the hole had to be

enlarged, and the only tool they had was a dust-shovel. A quantity of

quicklime was thrown in with the body to destroy all identification.

This was on a Thursday evening. For the remainder of that week and

part of the next the murderers stayed in the house, and occupied the

kitchen, close to the remains of their victim. On the Sunday Mrs.

Manning roasted a goose at this same kitchen fire, and ate it with

relish in the afternoon. This cold-blooded indifference after the event

was only outdone by the premeditation of this horrible murder. The hole

must have been excavated and the quicklime purchased quite three weeks

before O'Connor met his death, and during that time he must frequently

have stood or sat over his own grave.

Discovery of the murder came in this wise. O'Connor, a punctual and

well-conducted official, was at once missed at the London Docks. On the

third day his friends began to inquire for him, and at their request

two police officers were sent to Bermondsey to inquire for him at the

Mannings, with whom it was well known that he was very intimate. The

Mannings had seen or heard nothing of him, of course. As O'Connor still

did not turn up, the police after a couple of days returned to Minver

Place. The house was empty, bare and stripped of all its furniture, and

its former occupants had decamped. The circumstance was suspicious, and

a search was at once made of the whole premises. In the back kitchen

one of the detectives remarked that the cement between certain stones

looked lighter than the rest, and on trying it with a knife, he found

that it was soft and new, while elsewhere it was set and hard. The

stones were at once taken up; beneath them was a layer of fresh mortar,

beneath that a lot of loose earth, amongst which a stocking was turned

up, and presently a human toe. Six inches lower the body of O'Connor

was uncovered. He was lying on his face, his legs tied up to his hips

so as to allow of the body fitting into the hole. The lime had done its

work so rapidly that the features would have been indistinguishable but

for the prominent chin and a set of false teeth.

The corpse settled all doubts, and the next point was to lay hands

upon the Mannings. It was soon ascertained that the wife had gone off

in a cab with a quantity of luggage. Part of this she had deposited to

be left till called for at one station, while she had gone herself to

another, that at Euston Square. At the first, the boxes were impounded,

opened, and found to contain many of O'Connor's effects. At the second,

exact information was obtained of Mrs. Manning's movements. She had

gone to Edinburgh. A telegraphic message, then newly adapted to the

purposes of criminal detection, advised the Edinburgh police of the

whole affair, and within an hour an answer was telegraphed stating

that Mrs. Manning was in custody. She had been to brokers to negotiate

the sale of certain foreign railway stock, with which they had been

warned from London not to deal, and they had given information to the

police. Her arrest was planned, and, when the telegram arrived from

London, completed. An examination of her boxes disclosed a quantity of

O'Connor's property. Mrs. Manning was transferred to London and lodged

in the Horsemonger Lane Gaol, where her husband soon afterwards joined

her. He had fled to Jersey, where he was recognized and arrested. Each

tried to throw the blame on the other; Manning declared his wife had

committed the murder, Mrs. Manning indignantly denying the charge.

The prisoners were in due course transferred to Newgate, to be put

upon their trial at the Central Criminal Court. A great number of

distinguished people assembled as usual at the Old Bailey on the day

of trial. The Mannings were arraigned together; the husband standing

at one of the front corners of the dock, his wife at the other end.

Manning, who was dressed in black, appeared to be a heavy, bull-necked,

repulsive-looking man, with a very fair complexion and light hair. Mrs.

Manning was not without personal charms; her face was comely, she had

dark hair and good eyes, and was above the middle height, yet inclined

to be stout. She was smartly dressed in a plaid shawl, a white lace

cap; her hair was dressed in long _crêpe_ bands. She had lace ruffles

at her wrist, and wore primrose-coloured kid gloves. The case rested

upon the facts which have been already set forth, and was proved to the

satisfaction of the jury, who brought in a verdict of guilty. Manning,

when sentence of death was passed on him, said nothing; but Mrs.

Manning, speaking in a foreign accent, addressed the court with great

fluency and vehemence. She complained that she had no justice; there

was no law for her, she had found no protection either from judges, the

prosecutor, or her husband. She had not been treated like a Christian,

but like a wild beast of the forest. She declared that the money found

in her possession had been sent her from abroad; that O'Connor had been

more to her than her husband, that she ought to have married him. It

was against common sense to charge her with murdering the only friend

she had in the world: the culprit was really her husband, who killed

O'Connor out of jealousy and revengeful feelings. When the judge

assumed the black cap Mrs. Manning became still more violent, shouting,

"No, no, I will not stand it! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!"

and would have left the dock had not Mr. Cope, the governor of Newgate,

restrained her. After judgment was passed, she repeatedly cried out

"Shame!" and stretching out her hand, she gathered up a quantity of the

rue which, following ancient custom dating from the days of the gaol

fever, was strewn in front of the dock, and sprinkled it towards the

bench with a contemptuous gesture.

On being removed to Newgate from the court Mrs. Manning became

perfectly furious. She uttered loud imprecations, cursing judge, jury,

barristers, witnesses, and all who stood around. Her favourite and

most often-repeated expression was, "D—n seize you all." They had to

handcuff her by force against the most violent resistance, and still

she raged and stormed, shaking her clenched and manacled hands in the

officers' faces. From Newgate the Mannings were taken in separate

cabs to Horsemonger Lane Gaol. On this journey her manner changed

completely. She became flippant, joked with the officers, asked how

they liked her "resolution" in the dock, and expressed the utmost

contempt for her husband, whom she never intended to acknowledge or

speak to again. Later her mood changed to abject despair. On reaching

the condemned cell she threw herself upon the floor and shrieked in

an hysterical agony of tears. After this, until the day of execution,

she recovered her spirits, and displayed reckless effrontery,

mocking at the chaplain, and turning a deaf ear to the counsels of

a benevolent lady who came to visit. Now she abused the jury, now

called Manning a vagabond, and through all ate heartily at every meal,

slept soundly at nights, and talked with cheerfulness on almost any

subject. Nevertheless, she attempted to commit suicide by driving

her nails, purposely left long, into her throat. She was discovered

just as she was getting black in the face. Manning's demeanour was

more in harmony with his situation, and the full confession he made

elucidated all dark and uncertain points in connection with the crime.

The actual execution, which took place at another prison than Newgate,

is rather beyond the scope of this work. But it may be mentioned that

the concourse was so enormous that it drew down the well-merited and

trenchant disapproval of Charles Dickens, who wrote to the _Times_ in

the following words: "A sight so inconceivably awful as the wickedness

and levity of the immense crowd collected at the execution this morning

could be imagined by no man, and presented by no heathen land under

the sun. The horrors of the gibbet, and of the crime which brought

the wretched murderers to it, faded in my mind before the atrocious

bearing, looks and language of the assembled spectators. When I came

upon the scene at midnight, the shrillness of the cries and howls that

were raised from time to time, denoting that they came from a concourse

of boys and girls already assembled in the best places, made my blood

run cold." It will be in the memory of many that Mrs. Manning appeared

on the scaffold in a black satin dress, which was bound tightly round

her waist. This preference brought the costly stuff into disrepute, and

its unpopularity lasted for nearly thirty years.

FOOTNOTES:

[217:1] At Liverpool, in 1842, there was a case of abduction, and the

well-known case of Mr. Carden and Miss Arbuthnot in Ireland occurred as

late as 1854.